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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28246884">Free will in soulmate-ism</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/thicck/pseuds/thicck'>thicck</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Alternate title: Soulmates in times of capitalism, Drabble, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:22:17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>853</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28246884</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/thicck/pseuds/thicck</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Newt and him are too different to be soulmates, Percival thinks.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Original Percival Graves/Newt Scamander</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>107</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Free will in soulmate-ism</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I somehow adore this ship and after reading too many fics about it, here we are</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div>
  <p>The problem with this particular soulmate business is that they’re too different.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Newton Scamander is a powerful man, yes. He can use magic in innovative ways that make it the more impressive and he has a gift for dealing with magical creatures. He’s also a man who prefers to not meet people’s gazes and who is, tragically, painfully good.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Percival Graves is not a bad man, no. But he’s pragmatic, direct and authoritative. He cares about people but he believes laws exist for a reason. He prefers to make eye contact when talking to people and he’s utterly disciplined.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>The differences don’t end there.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Newt Scamander is also British. He loves tea while Percival enjoys coffee, he dresses rather colorful for a wizard who needs to be inscospicuous where Graves goes for a dark-gray-brown-white color palette. Newt allows Queenie’s mind reading without much protests while Percival politely but firmly stops it, and Newt, unsurprisingly, loves the whole soulmate scheme.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Percival doesn’t hate the soulmate-system-ruled world, not at all. It’s rather pragmatic, in a way, if he thinks about it. If people know they have a destined one, then they have a constant hope and goal to continue living.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>What Percival Graves hates, however, is the expectations he also had in this whole soulmate business.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>People say when you meet your soulmate the rest of your days are always bright, joyful, everything you never knew you wanted.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>People, clearly, at least Americans, have an innate marketing ability. Kind of like the TV ad of the American dream. You know it’s a lie (or not that easy if you believe it’s true) but you can’t help but buy into it.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>That’s what he did with the soulmate situation, he berates himself.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Hence, the problems he’s facing now.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>People on TV ads don’t, by law, announce the enormous effort and sacrifice it’ll take to get that American dream life. Similarly, people in real life don’t, either by forgetfulness or willful ignorance, make even one single comment on the incredibly expected awkwardness of two independent people meeting for the first time and being roped by cosmic (or magical) force to be together.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Percival recognizes the usefulness of laws, the importance of a code to follow for the prosperity of humanity, but he can, and does, know that theory is not, and will not, be able to encompass the whole human spectrum of behavior and motives. That just means he has a job to do: he observes a situation and based on several criteria he enforces justice. Properly, orderly and swiftly.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Newt Scamander, on the other hand, is aware there is a law system but on the same wavelength he’s aware there exists mosquitoes: rather annoying and everywhere but ultimately something he can and chooses to ignore. Righteously, carelessly and chaotically.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>That’s why when Percival Graves first meets his soulmate, Newt Scamander, he swears he’s going to abandon capitalism and its pit of filthy lies.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Percival knows he’s exaggerating and being, quite frankly, dramatic. But how is he supposed to react when after 34 years one meets their soulmate for the very first time in a questioning room for suspects of committing illegal acts? Not calmly, no.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>So he keeps his calm exterior while cursing dishonesty with all his might inside. He doesn’t smile at Newton -“Newt, my name is- that is. I prefer Newt.”- Scamander even when he receives a sheepish and shy look (he feels bad about it later, just a tiny bit).</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>It just gets worse.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Newt is, unconventionally, not afraid of most things sensible people are afraid of. Treathen him with violence? Inconvenient. Sharp teeth and claws? Exciting. A powerful and uncontrollable destructive dark force? Pitiable and worthy of salvation.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Unbelievable. Percival’s soulmate is a mad man.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>But he’s also a man that saves the day, that demonstrates an amazing control and mastery of magic, that cares for the people and their safety (even if he cares a great deal more for magical creatures), that smiles beautifully, that doesn’t quite meet your eyes but offers softly to meet his creatures. A man that, against all odds, is a perfect match for one Percival Graves of New York, American wizard, auror, director of Magical Security, and head of MACUSA’s Department of Magical Law Enforcement.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Newt Scamander and Percival Graves are too different. The latter drinks tea, travels a lot and has more beasts friends than human ones. The former breathes coffee, is a workaholic and doesn’t have a lot of friends, human or otherwise.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>They make it work, though.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>They <em>choose</em> to.</p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Percival tries tea, occasionally. He accepts to work cases in foreign land more frequently (coincidentally where his soulmate wants to go to), accepts scarves of bold colors, and learns tidbits of information about magical beasts. Newt cannot stomach any coffee but still asks Jacob for coffee flavored cakes and sweets, tries to avoid breaking the law (or, more accurately, is more careful about it), presents his soulmate to Tina, Queenie, Jacob, Theseus and Leta, and shares his family of fantastic beasts with the man he will love for the rest of his life.</p>
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